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This past summer, I was caught in congested traffic on the sweltering streets of a southern French city. At an intersection, my friend in the passenger seat suggested a right turn toward a renowned spot for bouillabaisse. However, the digital guide on my phone instructed us to go forward. Fatigued and in a stifling car, I followed the algorithm's advice. Minutes later, we were stuck at a construction site.

A minor event, perhaps. But one that captures a defining question of our era, where technology permeates almost every aspect of our lives: whom do we trust to a greater degree – other people and our own intuition, or the algorithm?

A Call for Intellectual Maturity and A Contemporary Backslide

The influential German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously described the Enlightenment as "man's release from its self-imposed nonage." This immaturity, he argued, "is the inability to use one's own understanding without direction from an external source." For ages, that directing force for human thought was often the clergyman, the monarch, or the landowner – entities claiming to channel God's voice. To explain phenomena like changing seasons, people looked for explanations in theology. In organizing the social world, from commerce to love, religious doctrine served as the primary guide.

“Sapere aude!” or “Have courage to use your own understanding!”

Kant maintained that humans had the capacity for reason. They simply lacked the confidence to use it. With revolutions in the 18th century, a fresh era arrived: reason would replace blind faith, and the human mind, liberated from authority, would become the engine of advancement and a better world.

Today, two and a half centuries later, one might wonder if we are quietly regressing into a form of dependency. An app suggesting a driving route is just one example. Artificial intelligence threatens to become our new "other" – a silent overseer that influences our choices and actions. We are in danger of ceding the hard-won courage to reason for ourselves – and now, not to deities or rulers, but to computer programs.

The Rapid Rise and Hidden Risks of Algorithmic Reliance

ChatGPT was launched a mere three years ago, and already a recent study found that an overwhelming majority of respondents had engaged with artificial intelligence in the preceding half-year. Whether deciding on a breakup or choosing a candidate, individuals are increasingly turning to machines for counsel. Research suggests a large majority of user queries relate to personal life matters. Even more striking than our use of AI for judgment is what occurs when we allow it express for us. Writing is now among the top uses for generative AI, just behind practical requests. The late American author Joan Didion once remarked, “I write purely to discover what I am thinking.” What occurs when we cease writing? Do we lose that path?

Worryingly, emerging research hints the answer may be yes. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used electroencephalography to track the mental engagement of essay writers who had access to AI, Google, or nothing. Those who could use AI displayed the least brain activity and had difficulty accurately recalling their own work. Perhaps most troubling was that after a few months, individuals in the AI group grew progressively lazier, copying large sections of text.

“Inertia and fear,” Kant wrote, “are the reasons why so many of men … stay in perpetual nonage.”

Of course, AI's appeal stems from its convenience. It is fast, reduces effort and – critically – offers a new method to abdicate accountability. In his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom, the German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that the appeal of authoritarianism could be understood by a human tendency to surrender autonomy in exchange for the comforting security of obedience. AI presents a digital method of relinquishing the weight of having to decide for oneself.

The Opacity Dilemma: Faith Over Reason

AI's greatest allure is its ability to perform tasks outside our minds – analyzing vast datasets at unprecedented speed. Stuck in the car in Marseille, this was, after all, why I opted to believe the app over my companion (a choice she interpreted as an insult). With knowledge of real-time information, surely the app had superior insight – or so I believed.

The core issue is that AI operates as a black box. It produces answers, but without necessarily deepening human understanding. We cannot fully grasp how AI reaches its decisions – including its programmers admit this. Nor can we check its logic against clear, objective criteria. So when we heed AI's advice, we are not being guided by reason. We are returning to the domain of belief. In dubio pro machina: when in doubt, trust the machine – that may become our 21st-century credo.

Using Without Losing: The Essential Challenge

AI can be a formidable ally for mankind in rational inquiry. It can help medical research, free us from tedious tasks, or handle taxes – work that demand little thought and offer little satisfaction. This is beneficial. But Kant and his contemporaries did not champion reason over faith just so humans could assemble better furniture or have extra free time. Independent thought was not merely about efficiency – it was a discipline of freedom and human self-determination.

Human thought is inherently messy and error-prone, but it forces us to argue, to doubt, to test ideas – and to recognize the limits of our own knowledge. It builds self-reliance, both individually and collectively. For Kant, the exercise of reason was never solely about acquiring knowledge; it was about enabling people to become agents of their own destinies, and to oppose domination. It was about creating a moral community based on the common foundation of reason and debate, rather than blind belief.

With all the undeniable benefits AI brings, the paramount challenge remains: how can we harness its potential of advanced capability without eroding human reasoning, the cornerstone of the Enlightenment and of free societies itself? That is likely one of the central dilemmas of our time. It is a question we would do well not to delegate to the machine.